The Pulse: Insights Into Enabling High-Performing Sales Managers

Organizations must make their enablement of sales managers as comprehensive as that of rep-level contributors. In all phases of sales talent management, high-performing managers send clear signals about how they should be attracted and onboarded — and how their performance can be optimized. Sales enablement must draw on insights from the best sales managers and use them to inform competency-based learning and development.

B2B sales leaders often make flawed assumptions about the ease with which new sales managers can transition from previous roles. Leaders should approach the sales manager role in the context of the job-specific competencies, regardless of a new manager’s past performance as a quota-bearing rep. In this report, we share findings from Forrester’s 2018 Sales Talent Study that reveal how to properly enable high-performing sales managers.